What Dacianos have here is a two-track mini-album that is deeper and more moving than most full albums. Two songs, each representing something different; each with their own theme; two emotive pieces of musical landscape. These are not songs, but pieces of music.

The opening track 'Section 20' begins with a gentle, swaying guitar ostinato. Very, very hypnotic. The piano is like splashes of paint on a blank canvas. The sporadic bass melodies and rare, fleeting drum patterns make this perfect background music. The vocals attempt to convert what is a piece of music into a regular structured song.

When the vocals fade out at the fifth minute, it leaves the song cold before re-entering a minute later with all the instruments in tow. There is a structure here, but it's like the type of structure you'd find in a Jackson Pollock painting. The free-flowing form and ease with which the instruments join, play their repeated phrase and exit, gives and improvised touch. An almost jazzy flair.

Track two, 'The Last of the Mohicans', could easily be the soundtrack to an arty, dreamy film. A film where you float around your room touching objects that you never radiated such light before. A lament for a lost one. The lyrics sit so wonderfully over the piece they are like poetry. This is a beautiful, emotive piece of music.

At 6 minutes 30, the repeated high-pitched note makes the soothing music harder to listen to. Two completely different moods clashing with each other. It's like an alarm clock calling to you from a dream you don't want to leave. A dream where you are sitting, staring at a calm blue ocean with your lover's head resting on your shoulder. A dream where everything is beautiful and you need worry about nothing.

The music takes you to a wonderful place, but the constant humming in the back of your head is what eventually wins through and you wake up. The melodies fade out one by one, leaving only the ringing in your ears. Leaving you in a deserted space. You are left feeling like you are after waking up in a desert, wasteland with no idea how you got there, or why.

This is a musical journey.

Ken McGrath

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